Re: The Aquatic Adaptati
H. M. Hubey (hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu)
18 Oct 1995 13:22:27 -0400
slinkman@ionet.net (Eric Slinkman) writes:
>it is neither provable nor disprovable due to a lack of physical
>(fossil) evidence. One can argue anything based on what one believes
>to be true....just look at sci.skeptic or talk.origins.
People who argue for or against AAT use the same kind of correlative
or analogical reasoning. In other words, people see the same kind
of foot on some fossil as on chimps, therefore it was arboreal.
That's a shared characteristic and using analogy to what we know
today, we assume that the dead animal also shared some aspect
of the lifestyle.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
If nakedness seems common among aquatic animals then we could
use the same correlative/analogical reasoning. If we see beaks
and feathers and say that they are birds, then if we see
bipedalism and a head that resembles the ape family we keep
saying that it's in our family. There's nothing else except
for DNA evidence and that's going to take a while too because
of the sheer magnitude of the task. Meanwhile, the fight
is about convincing or putting up convincing arguments, and
also ridiculing the other side :-)..
--
Regards, Mark
http://www.smns.montclair.edu/~hubey
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